I swear if eyes don't at least mist at least once during this chapter I'm going to find an oubliette to hide in. Looking (mostly) at you Luna! Oh and Luna: Freili? You gave them their own ship name! I can't begin to describe how much that means to me! I love it! Do you have one for Jo and Marcus? I gotta know!

The End

May 2nd, 1998
Post-Hogwarts
-

The rebounding curse had killed Voldemort; Harry was finally free.

Half the school had been destroyed in this fight to the death, and so many people had been lost. Jo and Leilani leaned on each other and surveyed the damage done; it was silent except for the quiet grieving of the people around them.

"It's finally over," Leili said.

"Yeah… Now what're we gonna do?" Jo chuckled, taking Leili's hand; twin Occamys spiraling around their wrists.

"I dunno, Marty. Maybe we could start our own tutoring business."

"Did you just think of that?"

"No, I've been thinking about it a while. Just waiting for the opportune moment to suggest it."

"Well, tell me more."

"I dunno, it was just something I thought might be kind of fun. We could set up in Hogsmeade and offer tutoring to the kids at the school; that's really all I've got, haven't had the brain space for creative thinking, y'know?"

"Yeah, we couldn't set up in Hogsmeade though, only third years and up are allowed to visit with parental permission. We'd have to set up here, at Hogwarts."

"I hadn't thought of that…" she said, looking around at the ruined castle.

"I thought you wanted to go into wand craft?" Jo said.

"I do! But the biggest business for wands is before school starts and I thought it would nice to do something useful during the year. And I could always set up some sort of alert that would tell me when someone was there and I could floo powder or Apparate over to the shop."

"I'm going to be starting training as an Auror pretty soon, you know," Jo didn't want to crush this new dream of Leili's, but someone had to be practical. If she went and became an Auror, then she wouldn't be able to help with this new tutoring business.

"Oh I know, and you're going to be fantastic, but with Moody, Lupin, Snape and Slughorn gone, Hogwarts is going to need at least two new teachers. Maybe, when you're done with Auror training, you can come back and teach Defense Against the Dark Arts."

Jo grinned, "I thought you wanted me to go into the tutoring business with you?"

"Yeah… that whole train of thought just sort've happened…" Leili mused. "I dunno," she rubbed her face with her hands, "I've still got to talk to wandmakers about an apprenticeship. How about we revisit the tutoring idea when we're both done with training; Deal?"

"Deal. Now, I think you should go check on Fred, I know you want to."

"You sure?"

"Go," Jo half-ordered. Leili gave her hand a squeeze before heading off to see how Fred was holding up.

Marcus came over shortly after Leilani left.

"What was that about?" he asked, nodding in Leilani's general direction.

"The conversation? The future."

"What about it?" He carefully sat down beside her; he'd changed out of his death eater robes and rolled his shirtsleeves up to his elbows, revealing the brand on his forearm.

"We have one now. Never really did before… SO… you…love me, huh?" Jo said, picking at a scab on her arm.

"I do. I always did," he dropped his forehead into his hand, his fingers in his hair. His dark eyes slid to look at her. Her knees were pulled to her chest, her arms wrapped around them. He'd never seen her look so small. Had he hurt her so badly? Could he ever repair the damage he had done? Only one way to find out: keep explaining.

"If you love me, why did you choose him? I asked you to choose and you chose him!"

Marcus shook his head, "How can someone as beautifully clever as you be so blind?"

He heard the sharp intake of her breath as she prepared to yell, to fight, to protest his words. He shifted onto his knees and took her face in his hands, scanning those beautiful features, taking in the anger and the anguish and the confusion. He was an asshole. "I chose you, Jocelyn. I told you at the Weasley wedding, and I'll tell you again everyday until you believe me: I. Choose. You."

She pressed her lips together to stop the wobble, fought to keep her eyebrows from pulling together but she couldn't hide the hurt swimming in her eyes or stop it from leaking out of her words, "How is going off to be a Death Eater choosing me?!"

His thumbs caressed her cheeks, brushing off the tears that fell, "If I had stayed, they would have hurt you. I can handle being a pet wizard for Voldemort but I can't handle you getting hurt. I—" he paused, unsure of how to explain this.

After a moment, he spoke again, this time starting from the beginning, "I was recruited as a Death Eater after we graduated. I flunked my exams the first time, because as long as I was here, I was of no use to them. I was safe. But my parents figured it out. They said it didn't matter if I passed or failed the second time, I would 'join the ranks of the Dark Lord' when school was over. It didn't actually happen right away. It took more than a year; I almost thought I'd gotten away from it. But then Potter and Company skipped school to go Horcrux hunting and suddenly I was their ace in the hole because I had something none of them ever could have gotten. I had you. I didn't want it, you have to believe me; I didn't want it," his voice cracked and his eyes burned, vision blurring. He would not cry.

Jo's own eyes widened as she watched him fight emotions she'd cursed him for not having.

"The fight we had, the first time you asked me to choose, you should have seen my hands," he chuckled. "I was clenching them so hard, I thought I was going break every bone in my fingers… I wanted to choose you, to tell you but if I did, then they would have known—they were watching that night—and then you'd be dead and then I'd be dead because I had no value to them except through you and I honestly have no interest in living without you.

"They thought you'd tell me your plans, where Potter was, and that I'd tell them. So you had to think that I'd betrayed you. I didn't have the guts to break up with you myself. It killed me to make you do it. I meant it when I chose you at the wedding. The wedding was their idea, too; they were trying to get me to get you to take me back and they thought Potter would show up. They thought that if we started dating again, it would be easier to manipulate you. They branded me right after that," he sneered at the mark on his arm, now just a fine red scar. "At least I got to dance with you before they crashed the party. That was the best part of these past nine months, dancing with you."

"They were right. Harry was there, disguised as a cousin. …I don't think I've ever heard you talk so much," Jo told him. "Keep going. I haven't decided to forgive you yet. You put me through hell, Flint, you better have had a damn good reason for doing it."

"Every time we were near each other, I blocked all the major curses and hexes from reaching you," he offered.

"Every time we were near each other I was shooting hexes at you," Jo snorted.

Marcus grinned, "I know. You have impeccable aim."

"Impeccable, that's a good word, where'd you learn that one? From your dark lord and master, standing on high, playing track three?" She mocked.

"…What's track three?"

"No idea."

For the first time in a long time, they laughed together. He pressed a tender kiss to her forehead before moving to sit beside her again. Her face flushed with cold where his warm hands had been.

"You are also very creative with your hexes, I mean the melon head spell? Or making sardines come out of my nose? Clever."

She would not be wooed with flattery. She wanted answers. "What else?"

"I had the advantage, if you can call it that, of being in a similar boat as Draco; he had Voldemort threatening his parents, I had him threatening you. I spent whatever free time I could find persuading Draco to leave the Death Eaters behind Lucius and Narcissa's backs. Sent an owl specifically to Draco's room, the letters always written in invisible ink and charmed with illegibilus so that anyone other than Draco would be unable to read them. The Slytherpuff Alliance is alive and well."

"That explains it. Y'know, that's been bugging me. We came to rescue Harry and Draco caught us. He didn't turn us in."

"I was there."

Her face snapped towards him, "You were—you were what? You were there? I didn't see you…"

"You weren't supposed to. I thought if you saw me, you might not get out alive. I should have helped you, helped Potter and his friends but I hid. Like the spineless snake that I am, I hid." He sounded utterly disgusted with himself. Slytherins were loyal and he had broken that loyalty—he didn't deserve to be called a Slytherin and he didn't deserve her.

"Why wouldn't I get out alive if I saw you?"

"I thought you might hesitate and if you hesitated, they would have killed you. And then they would have praised me for causing your death. I couldn't have lived with that."

That stopped her thoughts in their tracks for a moment, then they recovered and she said, "You said you had no value to them unless it was through me. Why not? You're a pure-blood Slytherin, I'd have thought you'd have had tremendous value."

"Pretty much everybody in his inner circle was a Pure-blood Slytherin, believe me, he didn't need any more. But someone who could keep tabs on the Boy-Who-Lived? Say, through a girlfriend who physically goes and tracks him down periodically? That had 'tremendous value', that's why they wanted me—apart from my parents. I did nothing to keep our relationship secret when we were in school. Maybe I should have, but I didn't know this was going to happen. I didn't know that you kept an eye on Harry until after I had asked you out and by that time it was too late. I wasn't about to let you go.

"When I told you my parents wouldn't understand and that I'm not like them, I wasn't lying. When they found out about us, they didn't understand. Theirs was an arranged marriage, a lot of Pure Blood maniac families are. They couldn't understand how I could be in love with a Muggle-born Hufflepuff Seer."

"I'm not a Seer," she protested.

"You've got Seer in your blood somewhere," he asserted.

"I've looked through my genealogy and I haven't found any."

He waved off her protestations, "It doesn't matter; either way, you are a walking alarm bell and that's another reason they wanted me to keep an eye on you, to find out exactly how much you knew and report back. When you vanished from the stands at the Tri-wizard Tournament, I was afraid I'd never see you again."

Marcus felt a soft thump on his arm and shoulder. He looked over and saw Jo leaning on him. He very carefully lifted the arm and wrapped it around her shoulders.

She scootched a tiny bit closer and draped an arm around his middle. She'd missed him. She had tried not to, but she'd missed him anyway. He dropped his cheek to the top of her head and gave her a half-hug.

"You haven't said you're sorry yet," she informed him.

"I'm sorry," he said. He'd never meant it more.

"Tell me again."

"I'm sorry."

"The other thing."

Very slowly, he brushed his fingers through the hair tucked behind her ear. She melted into his embrace and he repeated, "I choose you. I love you. I'm sorry. I love you, I'm choosing you and I'm sorry."

xxx

Leilani went in search of Fred, growing increasingly worried when she couldn't find him. Dread pricked at the back her neck. "Not again," she muttered to herself. She finally spotted Madame Pomfrey.

"Madame Pomfrey!" she called, jogging up to the nurse.

"Just a moment, dear," the nurse said distractedly as she bandaged a wound. "Give me your hand." Leili hadn't even blinked before finding herself roped into service. She stayed quiet, letting Madame Pomfrey do her work, even though not knowing where Fred was gnawed at her insides. She rocked slightly from foot to foot, feeling sicker by the minute.

Finally, "Yes, dear?"

"You treated Fred earlier, do you know where he went? Is he ok?"

Gently and a little sadly, Madame Pomfrey replied, "He went to St. Mungo's for further observation and treatment. He was unconscious when he left."

"Right. Of course." She'd seen him and Percy off; somehow, she'd forgotten that. She couldn't call, Mungo's was too high magic, they didn't even have a phone there to call and she couldn't Apparate, the spells controlling that were still up on the castle. She couldn't fly—by broom or by wing—it would take too long and she couldn't just leave Jo. She'd have to have a portkey made.

Leili returned to Jo to tell her the plan, only to find her snuggled against her ex-boyfriend's side. Flint had succumbed to apparent exhaustion and fallen asleep, his arm still around Jo's shoulders, his cheek against the top of his head.

"You've forgiven him?" she asked, as non-judgmentally as she could.

"He's…okay. Not forgiven exactly, but no longer on our Kill-List. Marcus is… I'm not sure. He seems sorry and you know how I feel—how I could never stop feeling… I don't know. If we're to survive this, it's going to take some time. I think I'm willing to spend it. …I think this is the first time he's relaxed since we graduated..."

"I'm glad you're ok," Leili said, sitting down in front of her friend.

"Mm, Ditto," Jo said. "You owe me 5 knuts, by the way."

"Why…?"

"Ron and Hermione got together in their seventh year, like I said they would. You owe me 5 bronze knuts."

Leili burst out laughing. They'd bet those 5 knuts so forever ago, she'd forgotten about it. "They didn't attend their seventh year, I hardly think I owe you anything."

"This is still their seventh year, no cheating!"

"I'm not cheating! You're cheating!"

"Tell you what, I'll bet you those 5 knuts, and one galleon that Hermione goes into Ministry of Magic and Harry comes back to teach," Jo said around a yawn.

"Deal." Leili sat there while Jo fought to keep her eyes open and lost. It was also the first time since graduation that Jo had truly relaxed. "Accio blanket." As summoned, a blanket came hurtling over, smacking a few people in the face on the way. She draped the fabric over Jo and Marcus before going to find a way to St. Mungo's.

A convenient portkey taking wounded to Mungo's had room for one more person so Leili joined them. The trip was quick and just as stomach churning as always, between port key travel and apparating, Leilani wasn't sure which one she hated less.

When Leilani finally found Fred, it was after traversing every floor—some twice in search. She was frustrated and scared, no one would tell her where he was and the idea that something had gone wrong was almost enough to make her weep, it was certainly enough to make her light headed.

When she finally found him, he was sitting up in a hospital bed and chatting animatedly with his twin. She bit back a relieved sob and his eyes met hers from across the room. He smiled and she broke into a run. He caught her as she skidded to him.

"Hi," she said, her face buried in his shirt.

"Hi," Fred grinned at her. He held her tight, nose buried in her hair. "You smell like Ozone," he mumbled.

She laughed, looking up at him. "Boy, you sure know how to flatter a girl! You're lucky I like you so much."

He laughed, but it was true, he'd noticed before. Every time she went all lightning-ey, she came away smelling like summer thunderstorms. They were what he had smelled in a vat of Amortentia he and George had cooked up in their research for their love potion line.

Summer storms, old, worn leather and wild cherry shampoo.

"Are you okay?" she asked.

"I'm okay," he assured her.

"How long have you been awake?"

"Not long." He didn't let go for a while, he couldn't. He didn't care that his entire family was staring.

Suddenly, a little throat-clearing cough broke through their bubble. Leilani froze in his arms. She hadn't noticed they weren't alone.

He gave her a squeeze before letting go; her left hand sought out his as she slid to sit on the floor. "Leilani, this is my brother Percy, Perce, this is Leilani."

Percy watched them from his own bed, he'd only been back on his brother's good side for a little while, but he could tell that together, Fred and Leilani were unbearably sweet. She was also beet red.

"Nice to meet you," he said.

Leili nodded, "You too. How's your leg?"

"Better."

Oh god, this was not how she'd envisioned meeting his family!

To the rest of his family, he said, "This is Leilani, she's my… girlfriend."

Fred ignored the arched eyebrow George shot him, the wicked grin as he winked exaggeratedly. They could not however ignore Percy's hacking, spluttering, coughing fit as he tried desperately to cover up his laugh. Everyone turned to look at him. He waved off his mother's concern but couldn't help the stupid grin that refused to leave his face. "I just never thought we'd see the day Fred got ma—aaaa girlfriend!"

Leilani narrowed her eyes at him suspiciously, but then Fred was talking again, "Lei, these are my parents, you know George and Ron. This is Ginny and Charlie and Bill."

He saw the half shy, half embarrassed smile she gave, "Hi," she said, wiggling her fingers in a small wave.

"Hang on, I've seen you before! And you were one of the girls Voldemort singled out," Ginny realized.

"Well of course you've seen me before. I graduated not that long ago," Leili said, edging the subject away from mutual torture by Voldemort. "It's nice to officially meet you all."

"No, it was more recent than that," Ginny said. "You would come to the Room of Requirement. You brought food."

"Ah. Yes. Well, somebody had to make sure you guys were being fed."

"You fed them?" Fred asked.

"And watered. All but walked them. I figured they got enough daily exercise from running around Hogwarts all day. Besides, I didn't have enough leashes," she joked.

Fred snorted, imagining Leilani and Jo taking all the students who had been in hiding out for walks like they were puppies.

Arthur shot her a bewildered look.

"I'm kidding. We did bring them food and water, though. They also came to us with nightmares, occasionally. But they were usually the younger ones."

Most of their questions were the usual mundane type of thing, when did they meet, "Technically, 6th year," Leili said.

"We had classes before that, though. She threw a snowball at me in 2nd," he pointed out, teasing.

He watched as she turned to look at him, "I didn't mean to, I just happen to have quasi-crummy aim… You could have said something, y'know," she teased right back.

"I did!"

"Yeah, five years later."

"It counts."

"Yeah-huh."

"How long have you been dating?" Ginny asked, they bickered and bantered as though they'd been together forever.

"Since 6th year," he replied.

"Fred! Why didn't you tell us you had a girlfriend?! You've been dating for four years! You should have said something!" Molly fussed. "It's so nice to meet you dear!" Molly threw her arms out wide and wrapped Leilani in a crushing hug.

"Actually, we didn't start dating until the end of 6th year so it's really been more like three years," Leilani offered as all the breath was squeezed out of her lungs. It didn't help.

"Honestly, Mum, I invited her to Bill's wedding, I would've introduced her then," Fred explained when his mother released Leilani.

"Things went kinda south when the Death Eaters showed up," Leili added. He was still holding her hand.

He decided not to mention they were married, and had been for six months. He knew she was thinking the same when he felt her twisting her ring around so the band faced out. No need to make an awkward situation worse.

"Are your parents here, dear?" Molly was already looking around as if they would materialize out of thin air—which, considering Apparation, was technically possible.

"No, no they're not." Catching the look on Molly's face she rushed to say, "They're fine! My mum's a muggle, so she and Dad took an extended vacation to Hawaii and my sister came, but she helped evacuate the kids and is staying with them until they can get home."

"Where do you live, dear?" Molly asked.

"Right now, above the Hog's Head Inn, in Hogsmeade with Jo. Jo is short for Jocelyn, she's my best friend," she added, obviously not wanting them to get the wrong idea. "My parents live in Brighton."

Her Occamy tattoo twined down her right arm and blinked at Ginny who grinned at it. "That is awesome," she enthused.

Grateful for the change in topic, Leili beamed at her and lifted her arm, palm down, fist closed loosely. The tattoo inched down just a bit further and Ginny hesitantly brushed her fingertips over its beak. It felt like skin, but the Occamy closed its eyes and gave Ginny its best impression of a smile.

"Sometimes it's easy to forget that's just a bit of charmed ink," Fred commented, watching the exchange.

"You should see my Niffler," Leili muttered, letting her head fall back against his bed, her tongue tip between her teeth, eyebrows quirked in a way that was more comical than suggestive.

Merlin he wanted to kiss her. He wanted to get her alone somewhere so he could wrap his arms around her and not let go.

"How did you do that lightning spell?" Percy asked, bursting Fred's bubble again—probably for the better.

She sighed through her nose, "It's not a spell." She lifted her head to address Percy, "Not exactly. And I didn't do it so much as it just happens. I don't know exactly how it works but the most common factor seems to be fear; a mind numbing, 'scared witless' slash 'I'm about to die' kind of fear. It manifests as lightning. …I have to be careful that I don't accidentally electrocute someone when it does. Been there, done that," she shrugged. "Luckily, I'm not usually that scared so it's only happened a handful of times. Three; that I can think of."

"Three?" Fred murmured.

She tipped her head back again to look at him and murmured back, "Oliver, Not-Moody, and when you were hurt."

"Don't forget the time in the graveyard," Fred reminded her.

"Right. Four. Four times." Of course, all four times had happened in the last three years or so. "Five, if you count the whole Voldemort thing a little while ago." She stopped counting before she could think of anymore.

Surprisingly, it was Arthur who then asked, "So, when are you coming to dinner?"

"Um, whenever you'd like me to; I think I'd like that, I think I'd like that a lot, actually. Just maybe not tonight or tomorrow, I'd like to spend a little time with my parents and Kanani," she chuckled. "Excuse me, I need to make a quick phone call." Leili said, smiling politely before she gathered her feet under her, turned and wrapped her arms around Fred.

"I love you," he said into her ear.

A grin threatened to split her lips as she pressed her cheek against his, "I love you, too." He gave her a squeeze before letting her leave.

She stepped outside the hospital and first dialed her parents on the landline phone in the Hawaii house. Tears were shed, reassurances were given and a half-hearted lecture was received. Finally she called Jo, forgetting for a moment that the cell phone wouldn't work inside Hogwarts—or if by some impossible chance that it did ring while Jo was in the school (which it wouldn't) the second she tried to use it, the ambient magic that imbued the very walls would fry the circuitry and the phone would be so much burnt toast.

So Leilani left a message detailing her conversation with the Weasleys. "I know what you're going to ask, 'did we tell them we were married' and the answer is: Oh dear god, no. No, we're gonna save that particular bombshell for another day. I do however believe that Percy knows which makes like half the family that knows and Molly's not stupid, she's gonna figure it out unless we are so careful—and I'm not sure it's worth keeping this a secret if we have to work at it, y'know? Anyway, I hope you and Marcus had a good talk and a restorative power nap because I'm gonna need to hear all about that later." She sighed and tried to think if there was anything else she wanted to say, "Alright, I'm gonna run. I'll talk to you later. Bye."

Leili slipped inside the ward even as she shoved her phone back into her pocket.

"Hey, you're back," Fred grinned as she slipped inside the door.

"Hi."

With his family gone, he was free to kiss her as he'd wanted to since she'd skidded into his arms, much to the resounding cheers of the other patients in the ward.

When the kiss broke, he kept her close, foreheads touching, breaths mingling. She broke away briefly and he grumbled his disappointment at how empty his arms suddenly were.

"Oh, quit your moaning," she teased, crawling onto his hospital bed to lie down beside him, taking his hands in her own. He twisted her rings back around on her finger so the stones faced out again.

He ran a thumb across her cheek, wiping away the tear that escaped, joking, "Hey, where's the funeral, huh? Who died?"

She choked on the sob, burying her face in his chest, "Oliver. Oliver died. And Tonks and some kids who snuck back in to fight and they're all—all dead! And I couldn't save them! And I saw you lying there and you were so broken, I was so afraid that I'd lost you! And I don't know how I ever would have explained that to your mother!"

He kissed the top of her head. "You saved me, Lei. Perce told me you were the one who found us. You couldn't save those kids but you saved me. I'm sorry about Wood, I know you still cared about him."

"Did not," she half chuckled, half sobbed, scrubbing the tears from her face.

"Then why are you crying for him?" The question was teasing, her feelings toward Oliver were messy and complicated and Fred knew it.

"I thought I'd lost you," she repeated.

"Never."

"Oh, get a room!" someone called.

"They are in a room!" someone else called back.

"Get a private room!" the first person amended.

Leili shot them a dirty look that had no malice to it, turning back to Fred when he squeezed her hand, he was laughing and, as always, it was contagious.